One Out Of Eight
by Samiferal
Summary: Reid is suffering  from schizophrenic breaks, and you fangirls know you love it. Set right after episode 6x19 "With Friends Like These". One-shot, Reid's POV, no OC's, no pairings. Some angst, and a little cheesy in the end.


**It's midnight and I don't have a life, which is the reason I am writing melodramatic short stories about the one person that's always on my mind.**

**Criminal Minds belongs to CBS, Mark Gordon and a whole bunch of other awesome people.**

**XXXXXXXXXXXXX**

Spencer had not slept in four days now - since the day they had caught Ben Foster. He was still arguing with himself whether it had been a good idea to tell Morgan about his headaches or not.

_"Have you told anyone about this?"_

What had Morgan meant by that? Had he told anyone else about his headaches or had he told anyone else about his fears that he might have inherited his mother's illness?

_"Emily."_

No. He did not want to think about Emily right now. There was enough on his mind - there always was - and he could not get distracted even more.

Sighing, he rolled over to the side of his bed, placing the book he was trying to read on the bedside table carefully. He hadn't even had time to read a hundred pages before it had started once more. Suddenly, the words went blurry in front of his eyes, and the already dim lamp seemed agonizingly bright, piercing through his eyeballs and right into his brain, where an intensely sharp pain began to materialize.

Spencer turned off the lamp and fell back onto his pillow, frantically massaging his temples.

_"Are you seeing a doctor?"_

Emily and Morgan had both asked him that. Of course he had seen a doctor! The man had not exactly given him much hope. He should consider a psychosomatic cause. It was clear what that meant for Spencer. The question was rather, what other possibilities did he have that did not start with "paranoid" and end in "schizophrenia"?

He had done his research. Of course there were options. Sometimes, people working in a profession like his just couldn't cope with seeing dead bodies anymore. Or maybe the fact that he had killed human beings had finally caught up with him - like Gideon had predicted after Spencer had shot Philip Dowd.

He had to shoot Tobias Hankel, too. Oh, God. Spencer now felt like his head was about to explode. There was just too much, too much thought, too much noise… he could not allow himself to think about Tobias now.

_"Do you think I'll see my mom again?"_

_"I'm sorry…"_

Had Tobias heard his apology, or was he already dead at that time? NO, stop thinking about him! Too much noise. His brain was too full. Sometimes he wished he could just switch it off and stop thinking for a bit. But it was impossible, and the sounds just continued while he was fighting to get his exhausted synapses some sleep.

He lay on his back, staring into the darkness, his thoughts jumping from topic to topic. He knew he could take something against his insomnia - but past experiences still kept him from using any kind of drug. And even the thought of a pharmacy, all white and bright light, made him feel sick.

The buzzing in his head grew louder. Sometimes he could hear fractions of a conversation, sometimes there seemed to be crickets. Auditory hallucinations, his temporal lobe announced, and the thought was horrible enough to make tears well up in his eyes. His chest was tight and he realized he was breathing a lot faster than he should be. Tachypnea - more than twenty breaths per minute, his memory added. Oh, for Christ's sake, why can't you shut up? I'm having a panic attack here.

_"Predicting someone's chances of developing a genetic condition is like finding a penny in an ocean."_

That was true. But it was also true that the probability of him inheriting his mother's illness was 13%, meaning that, statistically, about every eighth child would become schizophrenic. What if Spencer's father had never left them and he now had seven siblings? Would it be him?

He was so exhausted. But he didn't dare to ask Hotch for a break - firstly, because the whole team already knew that he wasn't well, and he didn't want them to worry about him - and secondly, because he didn't want anyone to think he was unable to work, like they had after Tobias Hankel. He wanted their full trust, he wanted to help with investigations and get things done on his own. As long as he came to work, he did not want to just stand around and get in everyone's way.

Groaning, he grabbed his pillow and slammed it over his head. This had to stop. He needed something to calm him down right now. But was there even anything that could help him? He suddenly remembered Gideon.

_"This is gonna hit you. And when it does, there are only three facts you need to remember. You did what you had to do, and a lot of good people are alive because of what you did."_

He heard himself asking, "What's the third?"

_"I'm proud of you."_

A lot of good people are alive because of what I did, Spencer thought. Then his eyes slowly closed, and, finally, he fell asleep.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXX**


End file.
